father christmas visits grabouw again...

santa (johan) and his little helpers!

during last week we made the necessary changes to our heavy duty trailer once again converting it into santas sleigh. the plan was to tow it into the community on thursday afternoon but with a little unseasonal drizzle we postponed it until friday afternoon.

this was the third year that we have taken santa into our community and this year johan, our maintenance man, was chosen to play the role as father christmas, following in the footsteps of my dad who played him last year and our wonderful norwegian volunteer, trondor played him the first year we were here.

kids chasing father christmas and his sleigh

we decorated the bakkie, toyota hilux, with tinsel and balloons, fitted a new speaker system which enabled us to play some traditional christmas hits at a louder volume than we had been able to do previously. johan was joined by some of our longer and short term volunteers in the sleigh where they 'gave' out sweets to the excited children that we passed by.

kids in the community, followed by a local taxi
trying to sneak in on the celebration!

its great to see the reaction of both the children and also the adults as they saw father christmas coming past their homes. this year we took a slightly longer route to enable us to reach more children, the joy on their faces was a sight to behold and the sweets were an added bonus.

if you would like to see a short video of last years venture then please click on this link which will take you to youtube, or if you would like to read more about our previous years stories then please click on these links for 2010 here and 2009 here

a happy christmas from the village of hope

johan as santa as we prepare the bakkie to tow
the sleigh into the community!

we just wanted to thank all of our wonderful friends for their support this year, whether you are family, have volunteered (which automatically makes you family as well!), given funds, arranged an event, hosted us during our trips to europe, you know who you are and we really do appreciate you.

the children who live with us at the village of hope will be going to spend christmas with our house moms, thus giving the moms an extra few days with their families, the children a bit of a holiday and the volunteer team a little time to chill and enjoy the festive season.

so from the village of hope team, the house moms, the children in the unit and those in the community we want to wish you all a very happy christmas and a peaceful and prosperous new year.

unfortunately we can't post a photo of us with the children, but if you would like to receive one then we would be more than happy to email you one, so please get in contact, either through the blog or facebook and we will arrange that for you!

please could we ask you to remember our little 11 year old boy who is out of hospital but still very sick, he will be staying at thembacare in athlone over the weekend and we pray that he will soon be well enough to come back to stay with us, his family, here at the village of hope. thanks.

its hard not to take offence!

the remains of our security fence!

yesterday we discovered that for the second or third time since we installed a 'security' fence around the village of hope that around 8 of the posts which were set in concrete to hold the fence had been stolen. after the original installation we were unfortunate to have around 200 meters of the fence stolen so we undertook to install a new barbed wire fence in it's place, fixing that to the posts, and in doing so spraying the posts with red paint so if anyone thought that they could take those posts we would know who did it and speak with them about it.

the fence isn't going to stop anyone getting onto the property but we thought it would serve as a deterrent, giving a visible and physical boundary to our land. yesterday i spent around R1,000 purchasing replacement wire, which had been cut to free the posts, which is money that you generous givers have donated towards the work we do with the children!.

in the afternoon i ventured into the township to see if i could spot any of the posts, and yes i found one, holding up someone else's fence around their home in the community......what to do now?....

...i know that this is the season for giving but its really hard to be forgiving!

please pray for safety and wisdom as we seek to take this matter further, we live in a very poor neighborhood and people are trying to provide for themselves and their families, however we need to make sure that people understand that they are stealing from their selves when they steal from us.

beach trips and christmas parties...

moms, volunteers and lastly kids enjoying
a day at the beach

this could be somewhat of a reoccurring post over the coming few weeks as we enjoy some of the blessings that our children will be receiving during this christmastide and with the fact that the local schools close for their long summer/christmas holidays this means that our sports outreach into the community, which we run each and every school day afternoon takes a bit of a rest and we are able to do some more fun stuff with those kids and the others we support in our community.

in september we started a new club for children living in the local community who are HIV+ and known to either the day hopstial, thembacare grabouw or village of hope, and on friday, as part of their C
christmas surprise, we were able to take them to our local country club for an afternoon filled with fun and food, which they really enjoyed.

we were also able to take our own children (those that live with us at the village of hope) to the beach over the weekend, which was enjoyed by the children but more so by our house moms and the volunteers who are with us at the moment. we had a picnic at gordons bay, enjoyed some ice lollies and encouraged the children to take their first 'swimming lessons'!

over the next few weeks we will be able to share further with you about the ways in which we have been able to give these children some wonderful experiences, i must say that i'm not looking forward to taking 50 of our sports outreach children to the beach in early january, given the headaches of making sure everyone is safe, happy and accounted for, but i am sure they will all have a lot of fun.

could we also remind you to pray for our dear 11 year old who is back in red cross, not feeling to well at all and obviously missing this festive time of year with us! thanks

a very positive party...

johan (sponsored by white squirrel) and
mother christmas hold court!

we (tim and maz) arrived back to find that the village of hope was still standing, we want to thank rob, em, mel, johan, our house moms and other key volunteers for doing such a wonderful job when we were away.

as with most things we found that there were a plethora of activities set up for the children to enjoy, which can be increasingly busy around this time of year as people want to bless our children and those that we support in the community with presents and parties, which are all wonderful but take time to arrange and run.

yesterday we had the pleasure of taking the children from the village of hope, along with those known to thembacare (grabouw) and our day hospital to a party, hosted at agape but organised by mel from the village of hope, a sister from the day hospital and marlene from thembacare. mel also had help from our longer term volunteer heather who had sorted a magician to keep the children entertained whilst they waited for their food.

around 80 children attended, along with all our thembacare community based workers and village of hope moms and some voluteers....father christmas (well it was a lady, which provided some hilarity all around) turned up with presents for all the children, johan and hinrich also kept the children busy with games etc and a great day was had by all.

Rocky Road No More?

Those of you who've been out to visit us at Village of Hope will know that the approach to our property is a bit of a 4x4 challenge to say the least. Especially in the winter when rivers appear from nowhere after a small amount of rain! The track is unmade with potholes every few metres and it really takes it toll on our vehicles (as well as our backs!) and we are frequently taking visits to our friendly tyre fixers, Supaquik, to get puncture repairs and new tyres.

We have been hoping and praying that one day, we might have enough funds, or some generous person might donate us money, to fix the road and make it into a smooth tar road...and lo and behold, today there have been some 'road fairies/angels' sent to sort it out! 

True, it's not tar race track by any means but it is certainly vastly improved and very luxurious in comparison to what we were experiencing yesterday. 

The reason the track is being repaired is because the farm next door to us is being used to shoot a TV film for the next few days and they have lots of trucks and vans that would otherwise struggle to get to the location. Whatever the reason, we are very pleased that the film company have chosen to sort the track as it will benefit all of us for the next few months at least. Hurrah!...and who knows maybe next year we can tar it!!!?

Perhaps we will post a photo of the set if we manage to get a glimpse when they start filming next week.

a wholehearted walkers update III

yes handri its ice!

if you have been following us recently you will know that we have been busy with a tour around england with a wonderful worship band called wholehearted, we have had an amazing time and we just wanted to capture a few highlights of the tour with you. 


last monday morning we met the band at Gatwick at 7am and were joined by 'tour manager/driver/sound enginer' and wanna be drummer, mr james porter, after the first of many coffees we exposed the band made up of charl folscher, pierre and helena smith, handri and jaqueline de villiers and daniel botha, along with danni's wife sanmarie (who worked her magic with the multi media presentations during the evening) to the icy cold english weather, which was nice and frosty. we then drove down to Bath (taking around 3 hours!) and settled them in....later we met up later in Bath to show them the christmas market, but it was shut by 7pm! (typical!)


tuesday we met up for prayer and then ventured down to taunton for an evening event at the living light church, during the set up we were able to see the new video that had been shot in grabouw to accompany the bands new song 'hope is herre' which with the video images is very heart wrenching and certainly made an impact to those who saw it during the rest of the tour. the evening went really well, sound was great and we had a lot of people there, we even managed to get the text message service working linked to our justgiving page which was good, we shared about the work we do in grabouw, which i think touched people and the worship was also amazing.

at monkton combe

wednesday we had the day to spend with our son chris and wife claire and their two boys, the UK was on strike so it was busy everywhere so we chilled and then went to a farm with the kids...was nice, the band had a few issues with procuring equipment for the evening event which was to take place at 6pm at Monkton Combe school, around 130 kids who attend the school came along, plus my friend Mal and his wife, and chris and claire and the kids, me and maz gave a brief overview of our work in south africa and after a meal in the 'harry potter style' dinning room we hosted another event for the older more committed kids this was a more chilled event where charl shared and we ministered.


on thursday we met up for lunch in bathhampton with the band and left for Aylesbury, we arrived to set up for the event at aylesbury vale vineyard which was great, our UK marketing team made up of ellie and jess, ably supported by andy were wonderful, there were loads of people from different churches, some we knew and some we didn't and we raised a huge amount on the night!

river boat ride down the thames

our friday started with prayer and communion with mick at the vineyard, where he was also able to show the guys around their storehouse project which they were very impressed with, we then made our swift drive to london for the first gig at EN hammersmith, a great venue in a old church, no pews!, band were a little tired but we really enjoyed the cheese and wine on what was a bit more of a chilled out evening, where we once again raised quite a large amount for thembalithsa and we also had good conversations with new and old friends from wolfi's church.

wholehearted worship

now for our day off......well we were up and out by 9 for our tour of london, we managed to fit in lots of interesting things and had great fun with the band, we were in westmister at 12 noon for big ben, then onto horse guards and down to see the queen, the band we introduced to the london underground as we got on the tube to covent garden (the band were disappointed that there were no flowers!), then another tube to tower bridge, tower of london, then ferry down the thames back to the london eye for a quick spin, we then took a wander down south bank christmas market to a pub overlooking the river for a pint or two....then back to the station and home!...nice relaxing day off!


sunday had a bit of a different feel, i went to slough and shared with about 50 people at the EN church

charl sharing his highlights!

there, i gave the talk and finished at 12, but we took another hour to pray for people who were moved by my talk, which was great, maz and the band were at hammersmith, where they lead worship and maz spoke, it sounded like they had a good time, then i drove back to london to meet met maz and wolfi and spent the afternoon with them. the band went off to play at EN Stratford for their 3.30 service. me and maz then shared at the EN6pm service at Imperial College London, which went really well well.


we all met up in richmond for our last supper together and in true village of hope style shared our highlights and low lights of the trip, which was very touching.





it was an amazing time, we shared joy, fun, laughter, shed a tear or two and celebrated the new hope which thembalitsha are providing via the 7 projects in the western cape....thanks for joining us guys.

world aids day event/s

if you have been following our blog for the last few years you will know that today, 1st december, is special day in our year.....working with people infected or affected by HIV and AIDS is what we do here in south africa and today is world AIDS day and we invite you to join us in raising the profile of our work in what is still a disease with a huge amount of stigma.

whilst we (tim and maz) are over here in england we have an opportunity for you to come and join us in aylesbury this evening where we will be hosting an event with the wonderful south african band, wholehearted. for more info on the event then please follow this link to both their facebook site and tour blog.

for those of you unable to join us then we are also hosting a day of prayer with the wider thembalitsha foundation where we are asking you to pray for the work we are doing with those infected by this disease.  please follow this link to the news and media page on our website for our prayer requests.

or should you wish to donate to our wonderful work then follow these links to the donation pages which link to giving sites and accounts in south africa, england and even the USA!

Clowning Around - For A Reason

There’s nothing we like more here at Village of Hope than a little light relief and perhaps the odd bit of slapstick humour, so what more could we ask for than the chance to see some clowns for free?!

However these aren’t your average clowns, they are a performance group called Clowns Without Borders. This fantastic organisation brings laugher into areas of the world that don’t normally have much of reason to laugh and have worked in refugee camps and warzones. This week, after entertaining our sister project, Graceland Preschool, in the morning, they came to Grabouw to perform for us and other children from the community in the afternoon! We cancelled our sports outreach for the day and invited all the kids from those groups to the show as well as bringing along some of the children from the unit at Village of Hope.

There were eight comedy characters all together, each from different countries around the world and their show was all slapstick and mime (with a few trombones and trumpets thrown in for good measure). They certainly didn’t take long to get us breaking out in giggles and we really want to thank them for taking the time to bring a little ray of sunshine in our town.

To read more about Clowns Without Borders, check out their website: http://cwbsa.org/

walkers update III (wholehearted tour news)

well another week has flown by with our week long trip to germany and holland now over we are focusing all our attention towards to wholehearted tour which kicks off tomorrow evening in taunton, with further events in bath on wednesday, aylesbury on thursday on what is world AIDS day, and then a weekend in london starting in hammersmith on friday and finishing with 4 events with the everynation chruches on sunday....for further info the please visit the wholehearted facebook page or the wholehearted blog which they will be keeping updated with stories of their trip......but that is all to come, what follows is a short recap of what we got up to last week.

the ukuqulaII students

on monday morning we got up for the early flight to stuttgart where we had a short meeting with leslie, the project manager from the ukuqula I project, and then we had a three hour presentation by the students who will be working on the ukuqala II project. it was wonderful to meet these 25 students who have not only spent time looking at the 2012 project but also the long term development of the village of hope in the future.

in the evening we met up for a meal with the students who built the first ukuqula home in feb/march of this year, words cannot express how much their time and commintment to build us an amazing ecco house is appreciated and they will always be held up high in the stories of the village of hope.

some of our ex-HAN students
at the pancake house!

tuesday was another early start to make the hour long flight from stuttgart to dusseldrof where we were met by an ex HAN student, elsie and her father, we enjoyed an evening of football and food with them at their home just outside bemmel.

on wednesday we met up with the international department of the HAN (highschool arnhem and nijmegen) and their tutors to discuss the work that their sports, pyhsio and social work can do as they partner with our thembalitsha projects in grabouw, we also had a chance to speak to some of the students who will be joining us in early 2012, providing them with some cultural background to south africa and the types of things that they will be experiencing during their five months with us.

we were totally blessed by the amount of ex students that came to meet us at the 'pancake house' in nijmegen on wednesday evening where we took time to catch up with them and their progress since they left south africa, it was so good to see them all.

children at the emmaus school in arnhem

thursday morning was also an early start, no rest for the wicked they say!, where we had an oppertunity to share with 3 different classes of children at a school in arnhem, this went really well, they had some very good questions which followed a powerpoint where we showed them some photos of the work we do in grabouw.

gerrit spronk picked us up in arnhem and we enjoyed an afternoon in amersford before sharing with his home group in the evening. gerrit also drove us over 300kms on friday, taking us to meetings with an ex village of hope volunteer, leo, and then on to den hag to meet up with the dutch chefs who visited the village of hope with the culibus in 2010 and who are looking to set up a fundraising event in early 2012.

saturday was spent with eveline and bart in amsterdam, a wonderful if not somewhat 'hippy' city, before flying back to england during the evening to stay for two nights with josh's (our middle son) girlfriends  (haddy) parents paul and lindy who made us feel very welcome after such a long trip.

heres to a wholehearted coming week!

December News

Can you believe that Christmas is just around the corner?!

Every month here continues to be an adventure, especially because this month the B team have been in charge of the project! Tim and Maz are currently touring their socks off speaking at various fundraising events around the UK, Germany and Holland. They have been away since the end of October and are not due to return until mid-December so we (Rob, Em and Mel) have been trying to keep things running smoothly (well, as smoothly as they ever do here in South Africa!) So far, nothing horrendous has happened so we are patting ourselves on the back with one hand, whilst desperately praying that it remains that way with the other!

Children’s Unit
Mel has been spinning all the plates for the baby unit whilst Maz is away with the medical support of Sister Portia. Our 11-year-old boy continues to be a worry for us and his health seriously dipped a couple of weeks ago as he battled with another infection. We are in a constant tension with him, trying to maintain his comfort and trying to keep him out of hospital unless absolutely necessary. It’s hard to try and maintain the right balance, but at this stage there is very little the hospital can do and he is much happier in himself if he can remain in familiar surroundings. Thankfully, since he has been put on yet another course of antibiotics, he has bounced back somewhat and we are able to get smiles out of him again. We are praying that he remain stable from now on and still trusting God for a miracle for this precious boy.

Sadly we have to say goodbye to one of our lovely House Moms, Nothini. She is leaving because her mother-in-law can no longer look after her children and she can’t find anyone she can trust to look after them. Whilst we are pleased that she is putting the care of her children as high priority, we are sad to see her go. However, we remain thankful that God has swiftly provided us with a great replacement and we are confident it won’t take her long to learn the ropes.

Sports Outreach and Community Work
Our Dutch interns continue to do a great job in developing the programme we deliver. Weike has recently commenced a Mentor Training Programme. This is a six-week course for the four mentors who are young people from the community who help us with the clubs. At the end of the course they will receive a certificate to prove they’ve attended the course. Although the mentors are only half-way through the course they are already showing significant development which is fantastic. We did originally have five mentors but one of them, Reggie, has had to leave because he’s got a job. This is understandable and great news for him, but sad for us as he was great with the kids. Nevertheless we wish him all the best.


Other News

A New Rainbow
This month we have started a new venture in partnership with Abba (A Christian Counseling service here in Grabouw) and the Day Hospital. This is a support group for 9-15 year olds who are HIV positive and who have the added challenge of dealing with their status on top of the usual teenage issues. Although in it’s infancy, it is already proving to be very successful. Currently 16 kids meet every Friday afternoon at a church in the community and have a couple of hours to hang out together, listen to talks, play games and encourage each other. We believe that it is imperative that a group like this is available for HIV positive children to access. It has been noticed that this age group are the most likely to default on their medication because, as they enter adolescence and become more conscious of the impact HIV can have in their lives, they are choosing not to take it, perhaps because of the stigma that’s still attached to HIV and peer pressure. This is the kind of group that we hope the children who are currently staying at the Village of Hope will be able to join when they get older so that they will have somewhere to go to for support.

The children have chosen a name for their club (Rainbows Smiles) and it’s all thanks to the efforts of our wonderful volunteer, Molly Tokaz, that the group has taken off. Molly has since returned to the United States but has left it in the capable hands of our volunteers, Heather and Simon as well as Johan and Rejoice (who works for Abba).

A New Green-Fingered Friend!
We are also very excited to welcome Heinrich to our team. He has been recruited as our new groundskeeper and will be helping Johan to get our land here at the Village of Hope under control. He has already made good headway in the tidying up of the garden but he does have his work cut out as a lot of what we have here is currently ‘natural landscaping’ (or in other words, lots of overgrown grass and weeds!) Now that we have someone who is able to tend the land we are looking to revisit our vegetable garden and tame the plot into something more respectable! Perhaps one day we will have our very own version of the Garden of Eden – but hopefully with fewer snakes and more clothing!

Volunteers:
Well, we would be in a very tight spot without our volunteers. It’s all hands to the deck with the bosses away. Currently we have three volunteers with us. Katrin, the diplomatic Swiss, who has  been volunteering since June; Simon, who arrived from England in mid October and Heather who joined us from Austrailia, via the USA a couple of weeks ago. These guys are such a blessing and help to fill the gaps with competency and enthusiasm.  Heather is being ‘trained’ by Katrin to take over her responsibilities because Katrin is leaving in less than a week. We will be very sorry to see her go.  Thankfully, she isn’t going far. She and her fiancé are moving to Cape Town and will be starting a family – so we can go and visit whenever we like! Simon leaves just before Christmas but he’s been keeping a blog whilst he’s been here (http://simonthursz-gapyear.blogspot.com/) and Heather is with us until January so will spend Christmas with us.

This month we also had other short-term volunteers: We had a two-week visit from the lovely Liz Dillon. Another Aussie! She was great fun and took everything in her stride. It was also special for us as she was a member of Every Nation in Hammersmith, London and had helped to fundraise for the jungle gym a couple of years ago. Along with Liz we had a mission team from America, the Infocus Church from Augusta, Georgia. They bless us every year with a fantastic group of people and achieved so much in a short space of time working both here and at ThembaCare Grabouw. Thanks guys!




Events

Tim and Maz on Tour
Tim and Maz are now in the UK (and Germany and Holland!) and will be there till mid-December. They are touring the country speaking at churches, small groups and schools. If you want to try and see them along the way then check out their tour dates under this blog post: http://thembavillageofhope.blogspot.com/2011/10/tim-and-maz-on-tour.html to find out when they are going to be near you.

Wholehearted
The South African worship band, Wholehearted, will be accompanying Tim and Maz for a week in December. They have an amazing ministry and if you have the opportunity to get to one of the gigs. Check out their facebook page for all the gigs to find one near you. (http://www.facebook.com/WholeheartedMusic?sk=events) . We were lucky enough to see their warm up gig earlier this month and can safely say that you won’t want to miss out! They will be in Bath, Aylesbury and in various areas of London.


Christmas
Well, it’s just around the corner!.. and we have the perfect solution to those hard-to-buy-for friends and relatives. You can purchase physical Christmas cards for different values that contribute towards things like food, clothing and fuel for Village of Hope. Please email jess@thembalitshauk.org.uk if you are interested. We also have e-gifts available to purchase through eBay. Follow this link for a full list (http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/monte_at_home/m.html?item=290630186720&viewitem&_trksid=p4340.l2562)  or check out the event on the Thembalitsha facebook page for more details (www.facebook.com/thembalitshafoundation)



How You Can Help
We are never short of ideas on how you can help us out!!!!
• Give - Become a regular monthly giver - Regular givers are like gold dust to us!!! You can download a standing order form from our website – don’t forget to sign a gift aid form if you are a UK tax payer. Or nominate us as your charity of choice within your church or business.
• Fundraise – Commit to shave your head, host a quiz night, do a sporting event!!!!! – The possibilities are endless and can raise £1000s with enough enthusiasm! We also have annual walks, runs and bike rides. For more information contact us office@thembalitshauk.org.uk
• Pray – Sign up to the prayer newsletter. Prayer is just as vital to us (if not more so) than money! We can’t have enough people committing to pray persistently for us. Sign up at prayer@thembalitshauk.org.uk

Volunteering
We rely heavily on committed volunteers to do the stuff out here in South Africa. It can be a fantastic way to give (and receive!) However, we do have some criteria you have to meet in order to apply. For more information on volunteering for the Village of Hope please download the INFORMATION FOR VOLUNTEERS documents under the ‘Support Us’ page on our website (http://www.thembalitsha.org.za). Also, please do NOT book ANY flights before your application form has been accepted. Thank you!

walkers tour update II

we just wanted to provide a short update about our last weeks engagements before we fly off to germany and holland for a week long trip which will include visits to see the stuttgart university team who are looking to come out to the village of hope in early 2012, a meeting with the tutors at the HAN university including a chance to catch up with some of the students who have interned with us in the past, plus we have a couple of speaking events with an ex volunteer next thursday and friday.

so what did we get up to this week?

well we heard from arron, who is now in the caribbean, God is really using this time to speak to him about the next steps in his life and we also spent some time with our middle son, josh, as he came to visit on his way through to a party!

the service at the bridge at southcourt baptist church was great, it was wonderful to see some old friends and also have a chance to share with some new ones too...monday morning went well as we shared an assembly at the school that maz used to work at and we had the opportunity of taking a year 5 and 6 class with a question and answer session.

tuesday we meet up with a good friend, mal calladine, before spending a night with our son, his wife and our gorgeous little grandson's...its times like that when we really do count the cost that we have made to work in south africa, it would be so easy to stay in england and watch and support this little family as they start their journey, but we know we are called to do God's work with the other children that he has placed in our lives and we relish getting back to them too.

sophie and zac busy counting the money!

on wednesday evening we were able to share with some friends who now run the homegroup that we set up, it was great to have a chance to share and encourage them and to receive a gift of £9.62 from sophie and zac who continue to tithe their pocket money towards the work that we do at the village of hope, thank you guys it really does make a difference!

friday morning started with an interview with our local radio station, mix96, who will be broadcasting the interview on the 1st of december, world aids day, so if you are near a radio/internet connection we hope that you might hear us speak!

it was a pleasure to be asked to speak in long crendon on friday evening where we encouraged people with our stories of hope, it was great to meet up with tessa prodger, an amazing lady who has inspired and supported us for many years since we worked together at a crusader group in granborough.

as you can see our weeks are quite full and we will be speaking at the winslow vineyard tomorrow morning before flying out for our exciting trip as we hop over the water to see our friends in the eurozone next week!

Wonder-boy's 2nd Birthday

Today we have been very excited to celebrate the second birthday of a little boy whom we’ve been looking after since he was just five days old. This precious little one really is one of our miracle children. He came to us because his family weren’t able to care for him correctly: His mother is HIV positive, blind and lives, along with the Grandmother, in a shack in one of the most desperate areas of town. She was not able to feed him properly so she was advised that sugared water would be a good alternative! Needless to say he ended up at the day hospital because he was hypo-glycaemic and then was referred to us by social services.

Babies born to HIV positive mothers have a slim chance of avoiding the virus but they have to wait until they are 12 weeks old to find out for sure one way or the other. We were praying very hard in those few months, asking the Lord to protect him from the virus. So we were over the moon to find that this little boy was, by God's grace, not HIV positive. He is wonder-boy! He is fit and healthy and it has been a pleasure to witness all the exciting developments in his live so far; learning to sit, learning to walk, learning to talk…Although it is sad that he cannot have a typical family around him to celebrate, I think, as far has he is concerned, we are his family. After all, we are all he has ever known!

We continue to work side-by side with the social services for this little one’s best interests and, you never know, by this time next year, wonder-boy might be celebrating his birthday with a family of his very own!….we will just have to wait and see.

walkers tour update.....

we (tim and maz) have enjoyed a busy week here in england speaking at various events around the country, doing radio interviews and sharing our story about the work that we are involved with in south africa.

to give you a flavor of where we have been and who we have seen we thought that it would be good to provide a short update with some further news of future events where you could come and hear us speak.

last sunday morning we spoke at holy trinity ashby de la zouch with our good friend tim phillips and his wonderful church. we had the pleasure of catching up with an old volunteer from the village of hope, harry hoggarth in loughborough in the afternoon and then stayed the night with tim and sarah where we shared some time with their youth group, 'spagbol'. on monday morning we made the hour long trip down to st mary's primary school in aston le walls and shared at their school assembly.

on tuesday evening we spoke at a cluster group at holy trinity walton street and enjoyed a quick massage on wednesday morning with marianne elias before meeting up with grace perret who will be volunteering with us for 3 months from february.

we had the pleasure of speaking at a student alpha meeting with harry back in loughborugh, which we thought went really well and then journeyed on to spent the night with liz and shaun at cliff college in derbyshire. on friday morning we made what should have been a very scenic drive through the derbyshire dales, however it was a typical late autumn day and the fog kept us from seeing further than a few feet in front of the car.

on friday lunchtime we recorded an interview at UCB radio in stoke with paul hammond, which will be broadcast on his show on the build up to world aids day on the 1st december. we were able to promote the wholehearted tour and left their CD which we hope he will play on his show.

it was great to catch up with my (tim) old colleagues at bartuf in leeds before we met up and shared with jess trigg who's family made us very welcome at their home where we shared with her friends and vicar in mirfield, jess will be volunteering with us for 6 months from january and i am sure she will be a great asset to our team.

saturday morning we made the long trip down to spend time with trefor and mandy, stopping in to meet up with vicky ball, her husband fred and daughter becky who kindly donated some funds to enable us to complete the new german home....

....highlights for the coming week or so.

tomorrow morning we are speaking at the bridge (southcourt baptist church) aylesbury.

monday morning maz is sharing at the school where she worked in whitchurch and in the evening we are really looking forward to catching up with the thembalitshauk board at our board meeting.

tuesday we are going down to bath to see our son chris, claire and grandsons, arriving back in waddesdon to speak at pete and rachel's home group, thursday i (tim) am going to meet up with some old friends at a local pub and friday evening we are sharing with a church in long crendon with our good friend tessa.

we will provide you with another update before we fly out to germany and holland where we will be meeting up with the stuttgart team who will be coming out to build us another accommodation block in early 2012 and the HAN university who provide us with interns at the village of hope.

Y'all come back now, you hear?!



WeedEat Your Heart Out


Well, the cats might be away working hard in the UK, but whilst they are we mice are scurrying around trying to keep the Village of Hope battleship afloat! - It gets a little crazy at times but we are hanging in there!

Last week we were very excited to welcome a team of 10 amazing people from InFocus church, Augusta, Georgia. InFocus not only support us regularly through an Adopt-A-Cot scheme but also bless us with  mission teams every year and they never fail to disappoint. Last year the team knocked down an old braai and built a make-shift access road for the 'poo-truck' and this year they were just as effective. They were out in all weathers strimming and taming the out-of-hand grass and weeds. They repainted the entire outside of the children's unit and laid a stunning tiled floor (DIY SOS-style) for the day room at ThembaCare Grabouw.....all in five days! On top of that they were also able to spend time visiting outpatients with the ThembaCare carers and playing with our kids in the children's unit and in our sports outreach.

The whole team were great fun to have around and we enjoyed their banter and attempts at the British accent.

Thank you, guys! - And don't stay away too long.

To read more about what the team got up to in their time here visit their blog:

http://thetrackingblog.com/lovebeyond/

October News

Once again we find another month flew by here at the Village of Hope, Maz’s sister, Viv, and brother in law, Mark, have been visiting the project on a sort of ‘holiday’ so Tim and Maz have enjoyed a few days away in the Cederberg mountains with them, which they tell us was beautiful....maybe because of the lack of mobile reception!?

This month our headline news must be the final completion of the house that was built by the team from Stuttgart earlier this year. Rob and Emily are thrilled to finally be in. We are also pleased to announce the appointment of a Nursing Sister to assist with the medical side of the children who live with us. Sister Portia will be shared between us and Thembacare Grabouw, where she will oversee our Home Based Palliative Care Team. She comes highly recommended and we are already seeing the benefits of having a professional nurse around the place.

The wider Thembalitsha Foundation held their ‘staff party’ at the Erinvale Golf Club, in Somerset West, and all of our staff were able to attend that. We enjoyed a hearty brunch and were entertained by some of the project managers who performed a variety of songs and skits...Tim and Maz ‘performed’ a version of ABBA’s ‘I have a dream’ with Maz in full 70’s regalia and Tim dressed up as an Angel, prancing round with his halo and wings!.....say no more.

Children’s Unit
Our little ones continue to challenge and amaze us. This month one of our little girls was readmitted to Tygerberg Hospital in Cape Town, with suspected Hepatitis, brought on by her immune system being suppressed with the HIV that she suffers from. Maz was trying to register one of our other little girls into a local crèche and found out that she didn’t even have a birth certificate. These things are sent to try us but we take each day as it comes and amazing things seem to happen. We thank God for these little miracles because without Him I am sure we would all give up!
The children enjoyed a week off from school, their spring break. This is always a taxing time for our House Moms who work a 12 hour shift (7am – 7pm) however we were blessed by having some help from our volunteers from the USA who tried to make their lives a little easier by entertaining the children in various ways.

Mark and Viv didn’t sit in the sun all the time, we did keep them busy with a few tasks. Viv helped out in the unit when the team enjoyed their staff party and we were blessed when Mark and his faithful assistant, Viv, turned his hand to the construction of a wooden sand pit, complete with a wishing well style roof to protect the children (and the sand) from the sun...Thanks guys it’s already a hit with the kids.

Sports Outreach and Community Work
During the spring holidays we took a day out to run another ‘Sports Saturday’ which is always a bit of a challenging day for us to organise but to see the smiles on the children’s faces always makes it worthwhile, especially as we held it on a Monday (!) which meant that they had a full day of activities on what can become a bit of a boring time away from school. The event was held at the Elgin Country Club, quite a contrast to the areas and living conditions that these children are used to, but it is so good to be able to bless them with those things that we so often take for granted. Over 130 children joined us for the event, in which we bring together all the different teams/areas that we work with on a weekly basis, we had 11 soccer teams and 6 netball sides and the children played so well in all the tournaments. For the record Hillside boys won the Under 14 soccer, a first for that area which they were so happy about, Iraq won the Under 16 tournament with some stiff completion from our newly found club from Site View. Rooidakke girls won the Netball tournament but were given a good run for their money from Hillside.

We were also able to take a team of under 14 boys to a soccer event held at Santos Football Club in Cape Town, this was part of the South African Police Force campaign ‘sport against crime’. We had a team made up of children from all around Grabouw, each of the teams/clubs /areas that we work with were represented. Whilst it was great to see the children from different colours and cultures come together to represent our town, it was sad to see other teams ignore the under 14 age limit, which meant that our boys lost all 3 of their games. It’s a hard lesson to learn but having good ethics and being truthful often means that you don’t win.......life skill 1...!

Our Dutch students, Wieke and Stephan are proving to be a real blessing and we thank God that he bought them to us at just the right time. They are helping to document the life skills, bible and health awareness programme which we run every afternoon in the community and this will be an amazing resource to pass on to our mentors when they return to Holland in January. They and the other HAN students helped out at the sports day which we were truly thankful for.



Other News
The Straw House:
As we mentioned in our headline news Rob and Emily have moved into the new long term volunteer accommodation, it has taken a little longer than we thought it would but with some designated funding that we received to complete the building we have finally managed to get them into their new home.

Volunteers:
We were blessed with the week-long visit from two of our long term friends from America, Helen and Jen. They joined us here at the Village of Hope and also blessed our Care Workers at Thembacare Grabouw with their fun and sense of humour. We have also been joined by Simon, a young man from England who will be with us until the middle of December....welcome to the team Simon.


Events and other stuff!
Prayer Day:
Our day of prayer this month was very well supported. Thank you each and every one of you who gave up some of your Saturday to lift up our project in prayer. It really means a lot to us to know that we are being supported in this way. If any of you have any feedback from your prayer time please do let us know.

Tim and Maz on Tour:
Tim and Maz are going to be in the UK (and Germany and Holland!) throughout November and some of December. They are going to be touring the country speaking at churches, small groups and schools. If you want to try and see them along the way then check out their tour dates under this blog post: tim and maz on tour to find out when they are going to be near you.

Wholehearted:
The South African worship band, Wholehearted, will be accompanying Tim and Maz for a week in December. They have an amazing ministry and if you have the opportunity to get to one of the gigs (listed in Tim and Maz’s tour dates) then don’t miss it.

World AIDS Day - December 1st:
This is a significant day for our project. Wholehearted will be doing a special gig at Vale of Aylesbury Vineyard Church for us. If you can get there please do. Also, if you are interested in raising funds for us on that day, why not suggest to your local school that they Wear Red for World AIDS Day and each student can choose to donate £1/£2 to be out of uniform? Quite a simple idea but it could be very effective. If you would like any help with fundraising materials please get in touch.

Christmas:
Christmas is coming, the geese are getting fat, please put a penny in Thembalitsha’s hat! We will have alternative gifts available to buy on ebay by the end of this week. These gifts are ideal for hard-to-buy-for relatives this Christmas and start from £5. If you can’t wait to purchase email us office@thembalitshauk.org.uk to find out more, if not, keep your eyes on the blog and on facebook for more information.

Thank You:
Finally we just want to say a big thank you to High Cross Church in Camberley (again) for raising more money for us from their quiz night. High Cross Church have chosen us as their charity to support for the next three years and we are really noticing their impact. You guys are amazing!


How You Can Help
We are never short of ideas on how you can help us out!!!!
• Give - Become a regular monthly giver - Regular givers are like gold dust to us!!! You can download a standing order form from our website – don’t forget to sign a gift aid form if you are a UK tax payer. Or nominate us as your charity of choice within your church or business.
• Fundraise – Commit to shave your head, host a quiz night, do a sporting event!!!!! – The possibilities are endless and can raise £1000s with enough enthusiasm! We also have annual walks, runs and bike rides. For more information contact us office@thembalitshauk.org.uk
• Pray – Sign up to the prayer newsletter. Prayer is just as vital to us (if not more so) than money! We can’t have enough people committing to pray persistently for us. Sign up at prayer@thembalitshauk.org.uk

Volunteering
We rely heavily on committed volunteers to do the stuff out here in South Africa. It can be a fantastic way to give (and receive!) However, we do have some criteria you have to meet in order to apply. For more information on volunteering for the Village of Hope please download the INFORMATION FOR VOLUNTEERS documents under the ‘Support Us’ page on our website (www.thembalitsha.org.za). Also, please do NOT book ANY flights before your application form has been accepted. Thank you!

Tim and Maz on Tour

I know you've all been counting down the days until you can see Tim and Maz again....
Well, I am pleased to tell you that it's only two more sleeps until they set foot on UK soil! Whilst they are busy trying to make sure they have handed everything over before they leave (and we are busy panicking about what to do when they do!) I thought I would let you know their tour details so that you can find out when you can see them. I have not put the full information on here (such as all the addresses etc) but if would like further details then please email me: office@thembalitshauk.org.uk and I will be happy to fill you in. Please try and see them if you can. They would love to see you and also have some amazing new stories to share from the project.


Here goes:


Sun Oct 30
AM Vale of Aylesbury Vineyard Church

Sun Nov 6 10:00am – 12:00am
AM Holy Trinity Church, Ashby De La Zouch
PM Loughborough

Mon Nov 7
AM Banbury

Thu Nov 10 
PM Student Alpha, Loughborough

Fri Nov 11
PM Huddersfield

Sun Nov 13 
Durham TBC

Mon Nov 14 
AM Whitchurch School

Fri Nov 18
PM Long Crendon

Sun Nov 20
AM Winslow Vineyard Church

Mon Nov 21 – Sat Nov 26 
Germany/Holland, visiting universities and ex volunteers, attending Dutch fundraising event

Wed 31 Nov
PM Gig and talk with Wholehearted, TBC

Thu Dec 1 
PM World AIDS Day Event and Gig with Wholehearted, Aylesbury Vineyard

Fri Dec 2
PM Gig and talk with Wholehearted, Every Nation, Hammersmith

Sat Dec 3
PM Gig and talk with Wholehearted, TBC

Sun Dec 4
AM Every Nation, Hammersmith
PM Every Nation, Hammersmith

new wholehearted video shoot

set up day 1 in waterworks

as part of our fundraising drive for the work that thembalitsha is doing in grabouw, via thembacare and village of hope, and the wider foundation with the other 5 projects in the western cape, we are once again partnering with the amazing south african band from somerset west called 'wholehearted', these guys filmed a music video with us last year (see youtube link here) and they have been visiting us and the communities that we work in to shoot a new video for a song that will be used to tell the story of the day to day lives of thousands of people in our town and other such towns like grabouw throughout south africa.

red ballons on some homes used to tell part of the story

yesterday afternoon and all day today we have been filming in the waterworks informal settlement, using everyday people to tell their everyday stories, we also shot part of the film with the soccer club that we run in the iraq informal settlement and also had help from the careworkers and house moms at thembacare and the village of hope.

soccer outreach with the kids in iraq

we were blessed to have the support of the whole community where we were filming and they were very keen in appearing in a film that will be used to support the work that we are doing to bring healthcare and education to literally hundreds of people like them, be they family, friends or neighbours.

as soon as the dvd is released we will be posting it on youtube for you to view but as you can see we have posted a few photos showing the filming and the team who are sold out to make a difference in the very lives of the people who appear in the dvd.

jesmond team put video on youtube

this afternoon andy greenshields place a video montage that he had put together of the trip he made with the rest of the team from jesmond/newcastle to the village of hope earlier this year. if you wanna have a look at what mission teams get up to when they come to serve the community via our thembalitsha projects here in grabouw then please follow this link to andy's youtube post.

thanks andy and its great to have a record of what you did for us and our community.

sport against crime

a rare corner for grabouw, the boys in blue!

as part of our community outreach i (tim) sit on the grabouw community police forum and on saturday we (the village of hope sports outreach team, our local mentors and our two dutch students from the HAN university) along with the local grabouw police station took a team of fifteen under 14 boys to play in a soccer tourament in cape town. around 16 police stations took part in this event from all over the cape metro and overberg region, the event was all part of the poilce campaign 'sport against crime' and was sponsored by shoprite and coke.

the boys looking a little
dejected after their defeat.

the tournament took place at the santos football club in lansdowne and the well manicured pitches were a little different to those that we are used to practice on in grabouw, in fact it was the first time some of the boys had put a real pair of boots on.

our team of 15 boys were chosen from the 5 different areas that we work in each afternoon, hillside, site view, waterworks, iraq and remhoogte farm in elgin, it was great to see the boys from the different areas come together to play as a team and practice some of the soccer and life skills that we have been working on within our weekly programme. unfortunately we didn't win the tournament but we did have a good time and we hope that next year the other teams will play by the under 14 rule which should enable us to win a few games!

as a prize from us each of the boys was able to keep the chelsea shirts that were donated to us by our good friend matt walker (no relation) which they were very pleased with...thanks matt.

vineyard workers!

contrary to popular belief our intrepid assistant pastors from the vale of aylesbury vineyard (not the wine type!), aka mark and viv knight, aren't just sitting around and or sightseeing in our wonderful spring weather, no they have been very busy building a much needed sand pit for our children to enjoy this summer. we might post some further photos of the finished item but here is mark giving it the final coat (in his coat as today the weather broke!)....thanks guys, come back soon.

a new volunteer arrives

simon helping with our tea time!

we are so pleased to welcome our new volunteer, simon, onto the village of hope team, he will be with us for a couple of months and come over to us via his good friend and one of our ex-volunteers, harry who was with us in 2010 and did a crazy bike ride fundraiser for us earlier this year.

simon has hit the floor running and was found this evening helping out in our children's unit at tea time, we hope that he continues to bond well with the children and look forward to him getting involved with our sports outreach in the community.

staff party

the village of hope team, less me, looking fine and dandy!

last friday we held our 2011 staff party at the wonderful erinvale golf estate in somerset west, each of the 7 thembalitsha projects were present, in total around 130 people including our 10 wonderful house moms, johan our maintenance coordinator, mel kidd, me and maz.

the day started with a delicious hot and cold brunch, followed by update reports given by each of the projects, it was great to hear from each of the projects, it gave us a real feel of family and highlighted the amazing work that thembalitsha are doing to help the most needy people and children in the western cape.

we really wanted the staff to feel special and for them to see a lighter side of the management, therefore after the reports we were entertained by some of the project managers who performed a little ditty, me and maz tried our best to ruin ABBA's 'i have a dream'...maz looked wonderful in her 70's gear complete with blonde wig and tight hot pants....you don't wanna know what i was wearing and thankfully there will never be any pictures published of that on this blog anyways!

after the entertainment we had a short awards ceremony, some awards were very serious such as a long service award and johan received ours for 'all the hard work he puts in to save us money with his ingenious ways of mend and fix', our house mom franjoleen received an award as 'most competitive mom at the children's parties'....yes some where a little less serious!

it was great that all of our staff could come together and celebrate all the wonderful things that each of the projects have achieved over the last year, it is a privilege to be part of this foundation and to work with some of the most inspiring people on this earth.

sports saturday on a monday!?

waiting for their awards

sorry for the lack of posts/updates from the village of hope. maz' sister viv and our brother in law mark from the vale of aylesbury vineyard (church, not wine estate) have joined us for a 3 week trip to see what we get up to and at the back end of last week we managed to get away for a few days, enjoying some time of rest and relaxation.....but we are back now and the updates should come through thick and fast again.

our 'first day back' was a busy one, not only catching up on emails and all those things we missed last week but running a sports day for the 6 clubs that we run each and every term time afternoon.

i must say a huge thanks to our two new dutch students, stephan and wieke, who along with emily and our local mentors, did a great job of planning and prepping the day, and not to take anything away from any of our previous students they have left an amazing legacy of documentation both physical and electronic which will make our lives a lot easier in the future.

hillside boys with their winning football shirts

the day began with the collection of the children from 5 pick up points in the formal and informal settlements around grabouw, our farm team was transported by their own transport. whilst we picked up the kids, the set up team got busy 'setting up' the pitches and organising the kits that each of the teams would wear. the sports outreach team, mentioned above, were joined by kat, mark, jen and a handful of other dutch students who would be the 'team managers'. we even had a visit from the children we look after at the village of hope, which was really special.

after the 130 children had arrived, prayers were said, kits handed out and the games began, we held a huge netball tournaments for the girls, with 7 teams taking part, and two groups of boys football, an under 14 and an over 14 tournament. made up of a total of 11 teams.

the joy, noise and sportsmanship that surrounded the elgin county club during the morning was amazing, all the children behaved really well, they played hard but fair and the standard of skill that was shown was something to behold, we are very proud of them that they are learning the sports, life and lifestyle skills that we speak to them about each and every week.

we were served a hot dog lunch, with rolls sponsored by the local spar and Vienna's from the roundtable, and after a short presentation/game from some of the other dutch (HAN) students about the need to collect rubbish and recycle the winners of the sports tournaments were announce.

for the record, the rooidakke girls team won the netball from a hard fought hillside team in second place in the league, and for the first time a team from hillside won the under 14 league, they were blessed with an A and B side, and iraq won the over 14 league with our new team from site-view coming a strong second.

the winning teams were presented with a soccer shirt (we wont mention their name on this blog but they come from west london and aren't my favorites (me being a QPR fan!).....but the kids really appreciated the thought and we hope that we will be able to repeat this again very soon.